Books and toys and presents

We haven't bought much for the baby yet. Our apartment's cramped as it is, and we have plenty of time, so I've exhibited extreme self control and only bought some pacifiers (which I then found out you're not really supposed to use if you can help it) and 1 baby book, a Dr. Seuss book to read to the baby in utero.

I saw this in a cute little hippie restaurant in the Valley that also has a gift shop/bookstore. I got it when I was about 9 weeks pregnant. That was soon after my gynecologist stopped freaking out about everything and actually congratulated me on being pregnant.

Recently, Mark came home with this:


It's got a stuffed bunny on the inside, tethered to a rope and you move it into pockets on each page, putting the bunny in a new scene.

So today, I gave in and bought the baby his 3rd book. Now the baby can hear now and after Mark and I have read the same book to the baby a couple of times, I started to want at least one more book (Sleepy Bunny needs an actual child out of womb to enjoy the visuals, so I'm not counting it.) I'm sure the baby could care less, but I felt silly repeating the same story and thought, "can I make it through four more months with this same book? No way!" So, today, I was out with my friend Trish and gave in to this:

It's very readable, long enough to make a baby pass out during a reading and has a little dance bit that you do at the end that'll age well. An older kid will like to get to the dance part. Turns out, Mark is acquainted with the illustrator and actually likes her stuff.

It's hard picking out baby books for a newborn because it' all about the "why" you're buying it. The first and last book above are good books to read to a child to make them fall asleep and even to let a fetus hear your voice. But when the kid's actually out of the womb, they can't see colors, so they've made these black and white picture books. Not sure if I'd buy one - they are godawful. But if you wanted your child to look at a book, that'd be the one to buy.

And there's a whole other set of books that are very rudimentary with one word and picture per page, but those are for kids old enough to try to read along. Right now, we're going all the reading, so really the book care bore ME to death!

The baby's also gotten a few presents. My friend Kenya bought the baby his first cd, lullabies from the Baby Einstein series.

Now that he's going to have his own room, I'm more willing to start getting stuff, but I also don't want to be one of those nuts who buys all this stuff before the shower and gets dupes. So I can exercise control until after the baby shower, and give myself something to do in month 8 while I'm waiting. Lord knows I'll be able to do very little other than shop or eat!

A nice lady from church, Ginny, works at Disney and has already gotten me a diaper bag, and without knowing it was a boy (we didn't know yet either when she bought it) got me the perfect bag for a little boy with Winnie the Pooh on it.


It had a little stuffed bear with a built-in picture frame. I had to promptly hide this from Max who thinks that everything stuff that enters the house is clearly for him. I wish I had his self-esteem. He's living The Secret and he never had to read the book or watch the film! When Mark and I first started dating, he brought me stuffed animals often - helped heal my childhood that was devoid of stuffed things. He didn't know that, he just liked bringing me presents. :) But the presents would fall off the shelf and boom! Max's new toy. Didn't matter how big it was, he'd carry it off in his mouth, which was really funny when he tried to drag this bear that was about 3 times his size.

Note Max in the corner of the photo! Aha!

Mark's parents also gave us a well-timed present: a baby memory book. Originally meant as a Xmas present, Mark's mom decided it'd be better timed to give it to us now. She was right! It has sections for before the baby's birth as well as afterwards.

Mark's going to have to do the actual long-hand writing in the book. It's way too cute for my chicken-scratch. I can do the content, but the artist in the family is going to have to write it out. I always wondered why his handwriting was so much better than mine and one day, watching him hold a pencil like a paintbrush it dawned on me that an artist is an artist in all facets regarding writing and drawing instruments. He doesn't even hold his pencil like the average person.

Once we get a crib (not sure when that's going to happen - the baby will probably cosleep in a cosleeper next to our bed for the first 2 or 3 months before he moves to his own room) I would like for Mark to decorate it with one of his illustrations, like Pam did for Damone's crib when he was a baby. I was only four, but I remember the day that Pam painted a puppy on the back of Damone's crib. I was so impressed. Not only was she a big kid (about 13 at the time) but she could draw and paint too!

Looking back though, I have more questions than answers. I remember Damone's crib being in a humongous room on the 2nd floor of our house, across the hall from me and Pam's SHARED room. Why did my parents put a nursery upstairs when there were two rooms on the first floor next to them? And I called up Pam recently and asked why was a 13 year old sharing a bedroom with a four year old in a room with at least 2 extra bedrooms? She laughed and told me that would have started WWIII at the time. Whatever. Mind boggling. I liked the company - I was scared of the upstairs (but I could have slept downstairs next to my parents as well) and probably scared of the dark too. Besides, they probably needed someone to check me out when I brained myself periodically, falling from a big-girl four poster bed onto the hard wood floor of our room. Once again, why a four year old was sleeping in a bed that high, I'll never know! :)

Bill Cosby said that he thought his parents were stupid and the older he got, the smarter they seemed and the more he realized that it was he, himself, who was the not so bright one. I'm sort of the opposite: I always thought my parents were geniuses (because they are both extremely intelligent, book smart and successful) but as I get older, I get stumped by how they did things back then. My dad can never remember why anything happened a certain way, or that it happened at all, and you wouldn't want to ask my mom at all!

I think it's great that all these memories of my childhood have started to flood me as Miles' birth comes nearer. It's a great time to reflect on what I'd hope for him and to remember what the best moments were and what I'd skip in retrospect.

One of my fondest memories of early, early childhood was sitting in the rocking chair with my mom, back with those old Jenny Lind chairs with the humongous curved rails at the bottom. The impressions of early childhood aren't always clear, more like watercolor pictures. But remember the calm and the joy of being held and rocked in the rocker. So for sure, I'm getting my baby a glider for his room at some point. And the new house has a outdoor bench glider on the teeny front porch, near hummingbird feeders, so we can do the outdoors as well.

My childhood memories before the age of 6 were mostly near bliss, so I'd like to replicate a lot of that for our baby, but even better. Phew! Six years that I can just follow the template of what my parents did (minus the bizarre room arrangments) without having to think. Yippee!

I'm off to bed at 9:45 like an old lady.

Catch you later.

P.S. - Thanks for all the yummy little presents, y'all. :)